Harry Stark and the Sorcerer's Throne
by Lady Stella Black
Summary: Game of Thrones/Harry Potter crossover that starts about where Goblet of Fire picks up...but in Westeros. Where Voldemort is vying for the iron throne, but needs a body first. And who better to help him than Bellatrix, Melisandre and the Lord of Light? How will the Starks and Lannisters handle his rise to power? And who are the real parents of Harry Stark?
1. Chapter 1: The Raven is Coming

**Episode 1: The Raven is Coming **

"_...For some time House Slytherin had always sat on the iron throne. That is, until king Salazar Slytherin was murdered, supposedly by rebels led by Godric Gryffindor of House Gryffindor. After Gryffindor took the throne, he was much beloved by people of his own house, and by many in the houses of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff as well, for he was a good and just and heroic king. It is believed that Salazar Slytherin had no heirs, but, a cunning yet charismatic House Slytherin nobleman, Tom Riddle, the former hand of the king, plotted in secret to overthrow Gryffindor and restore honor to House Slytherin. Some of his chief advisors included Lord Abraxas Lannister and Lord Cygnus Black as well as Lord Lancel Lestrange and others…"_

The woman who rode South from the wall did so on a black Garron horse that was darker even, than the woman's own hair, which was clearly once curly, but now matted beyond recognition and tangled to her waist. She was still quite pretty, however, and she knew it. Just as she knew she wouldn't have been able to escape from the realm's highest security prison fortress if she wasn't. Now, though she still bore the dirt and scars of one who'd spent fourteen years in prison, she wore the robes and clothing of a woman of high status-a long black dress made of silver-lined black Braavosian silk that was cinched at the waist, a metal-plated corset, black leather boots, and a wolf fur cloak shrouding her shoulders and back and clasped in the front with a brooch of solid silver adorned with tiny emeralds and the serpent seal of House Slytherin.

She may not have felt like it, but she was proud to look the part as she would be a woman of status again soon, for she was riding swiftly to King's Landing to reunite with her Lord.

"It will be the sweetest release to feel the air on my face again, my darling," were the last words she'd spoken to the Faceless Guard who thought he was her lover. And she'd meant them. Even if she'd spoken them to No One.

Though the most important face he'd given her, along with his return of her wand and clothes that had been taken from her when she was captured, was her own.

But the woman who met the Brotherhood Without Banners in the woods had a different face.

Her Guard had given her these faces so she could safely escape Westeros and meet him in Braavos at the House of Black and White. Bit thick of him, really. He must have known. And if he didn't, he deserved her betrayal.

The woman who met the Brotherhood in the woods wore the face of a different woman, one who'd died for the Many-Faced God in the past. The different woman's face was thin and pale and young, almost waif-like. The different woman's hair was short, sandy blonde and close to her face and her eyes were blue and round where the woman's eyes were dark and angular.

When the men of the Brotherhood surrounded her on their horses, she couldn't help but scoff. There were four of them, but they all rode rounseys and stots-capable for mutt horses to be sure, but they couldn't well traverse the snow.

"Bit late to be riding alone, m'lady, don't you think?" said the obvious leader of the rag-tag group. He was a brawny, bearded warrior-type who smelled of drink when he rode up closer to her.

"What business is it of yours?" she said curtly, with one hand on her wand tucked into her right sleeve and the other reaching for the dagger at her waist.

"All the goings-on of these woods are the business of the Brotherhood, m'lady,"said another of the men-this one shorter, with a face like a rat and a mouth too big for his own good.

"What Brotherhood?"

"The Brotherhood Without Banners. We wear no colors, affiliate with no House...we fight to protect the common folk of the North from all manner of threats," said the leader.

"Do you mean to protect me?"

"If you ain't a threat to the North," growled the rat-faced man.

"And what threat might I possibly pose?" she replied coolly and tightened her grips on both wand and dagger.

"Depends. What are you doing in Slytherin colors this far from the capital?" said a third man, who rode up to flank the first two. This one had the nicest armor of the group and his stony expression reeked of privilege. He was likely a nobleman who could have easily been a knight, but probably didn't like to follow rules.

"Does a lack of affiliation not free you from prejudice? Fifteen years its been since the war, or so I last checked."

"Officially. No one who wears that snake can be trusted. Ain't that right, Notch?" said the rat-faced man, tilting his head in the direction of the leader.

"You would dare say that when you have a Slytherin queen."

"The Brotherhood honors no King or Queen, madam," said Notch.

"Everyone knows the Lannisters swore allegiance to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…"

"Easy, Mudge. We can all play nice here." Notch swept an arm across the front of the rat-faced man who must have been called Mudge, but whether it was to shield him from the woman or keep him from drawing his sword, she couldn't tell.

"You wouldn't even speak his name. You claim to protect the North, yet you fear a dead man," she whispered.

"Don't speak the evil on your lips, lest you become that evil," muttered the third man almost imperceptibly.

"Did your mother teach you that? Again, I question your fear of a dead man."

"Everyone wants to think the war is over. But the Hand of the King was murdered and the dead man's whore has escaped from Azkaban-you tell me what the people need protecting from!" Mudge shouted aggressively. He definitely had one hand on his sword now and his horse pawed at the ground in anticipation.

"Dead man's whore?" the woman asked, feigning ignorance and trying to hide her excitement at the same time. She liked to play with her food before she ate it, after all.

"Bellatrix Lestrange. They say he found her in a brothel and made her his last concubine before he was defeated. Suppose being owned by a murderer old enough to be her father was better than being owned by all of King's Landing." Mudge laughed.

"Whore? Concubine? Property?" the woman hissed. "Try First Warrior. Captain of his guard. Most trusted advisor and devoted lover. Daughter of Lord Cygnus and Lady Druella Black. Associate of the Faceless Men. Devotee of the Many-Faced God and of my Lord and your future king, _Voldemort._" The woman peeled back the face of the waif just then, revealing it to be a mask of sorts, disguising her true identity, and then Bellatrix Lestrange blinked back at the four men of the Brotherhood-but not for long.

Before they could react, she drew her wand.

"_Petrificus Totalus_!" she encanted the spell verbally only once, but as she swept her wand over the lot of them, they fell, one-by-one, off their horses with their arms stiff to their sides and eyes wide like they were paralyzed. She saw fear, then. Perhaps the most in Mudge, the rat-faced man who'd insulted her so freely.

She slipped off her horse and got on the ground, up close and level with him, all the while exchanging her wand for her dagger.

"Mudge, is it? You're right, darling. You've got more to fear than a dead man...you've made an enemy of me." She stroked the outline of his sallow face with the flat side of her dagger. "I could kill you right here, easily, but what lesson would that teach you?"

She reached into his mouth and let her fingers tighten around his tongue. It lolled helplessly against her palm as she pulled it out of his mouth and inspected it.

"I'm sure I'm not the first person to tell you that you should have held on better to this. Though admittedly, some do learn better by example." With one clean sweep of her dagger, the woman, Bellatrix, sliced Mudge's tongue off into her other, waiting hand. His eyes went white and if he could have screamed, it would have pierced the night for miles. Blood seeped into the snow and she smiled, closing her hand into a fist around the still warm and flapping tongue.

"A gift...for the Dark Lord, after I bring him back," she said and dropped the tongue into the satchel at her waist. She glanced quickly from the bleeding man on the ground to the other three, immoblized by their horses, but whose paralysis would likely wear off soon.

"Now, what to do with the lot of you…You're going to be a problem for me in the future, aren't you? I can tell that," she said, rounding on Notch.

She even surprised herself when she killed him so effortlessly-slitting his throat and gliding out of the way in time to not let his blood fleck her. Even before prison, before any association with the Faceless Men, she'd been an assassin to her core. And it was this-not her pretty face nor her blood status nor her cleavage-that first drew Voldemort to her. Some natural-born killers worked like artists, with knives and swords as their brushes and flesh as their canvas. Bellatrix understood this. But she also resented it for its inefficiency. Killing could be art in its way, but it wasn't meant to be beautiful.

Careful not to walk through the blood and stain her boots, Bellatrix crunched through the snow until she was standing over the fourth man, the one who'd stayed behind the others, spoken not a word. He was certainly large enough, muscular enough and looked skilled enough with a sword that he probably could have fought her better than anyone if it had come to that...but instead he'd chosen to hang back and observe, probably knowing he didn't have anything he needed to prove.

"You're the smartest of the lot of them, aren't you?" she said, already knowing he'd do just fine to suit her next purpose. "And it is a shame I'll have to kill you, too...but if I'm going to be doing all this work in his name, the Many-Faced God will need a worthy sacrifice. And he doesn't accept personal kills. I don't particularly want to kill you, you haven't offended me, and I don't even know your name after all. You'll die No One."

Killing him was easy-she slit his throat just like she'd done Notch's-but removing his Face proved more difficult given the cold. But it was the Many-Faced God who'd helped free her from Azkaban after all and if she was going to resurrect the Dark Lord in his name, she couldn't risk making any personal kills without sacrificial ones to abet them. Any time one stole from the Many-Faced God, a debt was owed and in her mind, this work was her service.

When she descended upon the final Brother, it was her wand she pointed at him, not her dagger. Pointing at and focusing upon only his face, she whispered, "_rennervate_," and his sharp and sudden intake of breath told her that it worked.

"You're the lucky one today, aren't you, love? I need the rest of you to be still a little while longer, but it's just temporary magic. It won't last. What's your name, anyway? It's alright, you may speak. This is not the hour of your death." When she spoke to him, it was with honeyed kindness that must have seemed even more terrifying than if she'd slit his throat as well, given what he'd just witnessed. And Bellatrix both knew this and relished in it.

"Al...Lord Alyn, m'lady. Of Winterfell," he replied and she had to admire the fact that his voice only trembled slightly.

"You're brave in the face of Death. I respect that. That's why you're the one I've chosen to survive this night in one piece...While we've been chatting, I've nonverbally recast the paralysis spell. By the time it wears off and you've regained the use of your limbs, I will be miles away. At that time, you will ride to Winterfell and inform the warden of the North of our little rendevous here. I don't care what you do with the others, but I'd like you bring this one along with you," she said, gesturing to the now tongue-less Mudge still choking out blood into the snow. "Think of him as my offering...as well as my warning. Tell him compliments of the Dark Lord. Do we understand each other?"

She met his petrified eyes with her own and felt his struggle to nod against her as she wrapped a threatening hand around his throat.

"Good. Then to you my darling, I say, _Valar Morghulis_," she whispered, before mounting her horse and riding off into the rapidly falling night.

"_...Riddle called his army the Death Eaters and soon amassed an army big enough to declare war on House Gryffindor. This marked the beginning of the Great War and during the war, many people lost their lives on the side of the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix (Gryffindor's Army) and many people from House Ravenclaw and House Hufflepuff took sides in the conflict as well, dividing whole families in some cases. The war ended fifteen years ago, when Tom Riddle, now calling himself Lord Voldemort, was nearly the victor of the war and had just assasinated Godric Gryffindor, his wife Lily and their infant son...But something happened and somehow Voldemort was destroyed and House Gryffindor was able to win the war fairly quickly, led by Albus Dumbledore, Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon. Lord Dumbledore, not wanting the throne for himself, seated Robert Baratheon on it and made Ned Stark Lord of Winterfell. Many of the Death Eaters were tried for treason, imprisoned and killed. Others were acquitted or claimed to have been under a spell that Voldemort put them under, or acting out of fear…"_

Just south of the northern mountains and east of the wolfswood, lay a fortress guarded by one of the oldest noble families of House Gryffindor for centuries. It was a castle complex that served as the capital of the North and one of the most powerful strongholds of House Gryffindor outside of King's Landing. It was surrounded by a small village called the winter town and enclosed by granite walls, turrets, tall gates, and at all times, an army of soldiers.

Beyond the gates and past the outer courtyards, within the innermost castle known as the Great Keep, the Stark family ruled over Winterfell.

And it was here that fourteen-year-old Harry Stark dreamed of ravens. Or more aptly, a single raven perched among the branches of a black briar tree in the wolfswood. Harry lowered his bow ever so slightly and watched it, careful to stay as still as he could so that the creature wouldn't hear his boots crunching through the snow. No one had seen a raven this close to Winterfell in years-they'd been all but hunted down on this side of the Wall because everyone knew that they were an omen of death.

This raven had her face buried behind one of her wings, like maybe she was cleaning her feathers, and Harry watched her with his breath caught in his throat. Somewhere in the distance, the omnipresent sound of howling wolves cut the morning like dry ice. He raised his bow again and began to pull back, intending to shoot down the dark creature and bring it to his father, but something made him hesitate. He wasn't sure why, but then he realized what it was...it was too quiet. The wind had stopped whistling. The wolves had stopped howling. And then he was a different kind of cold. Even though he was wearing his thickest fur cloak clasped over layers of sweaters, he was cold on the inside, like his blood had stopped pumping and instead, he felt himself filling with an overwhelming sense of dread and the unmistakeable feeling that someone -or something- was watching him.

And then it all happened at once. Harry took a step backwards, a twig crunched beneath his boots, and the raven's head snapped up. She flew at him from her crooked branch, black wings outstreched and eyes wide and unblinking, eyes like amber encased around something that was emerging slowly as if through a portal. Something dark and cloaked and _moving. _

"Have you had others like this dream?" asked Harry's tutor, Septa McGonagall after lessons that afternoon.

"No," he said somewhat nervously, feeling all of his siblings' eyes on him. "It's always the same one." They'd been learning about the history of the north, when Harry asked about the creatures in dark cloaks that made everything feel hopeless and cold, the creatures rumored to exist only along the Wall that separated the Seven Kingdoms from the lands beyond. Creatures he'd been dreaming about for weeks, emerging of all places, from the eyes of a raven.

"I've read about them!" exclaimed his eleven-year-old sister Arya suddenly. "They're called Dismembers and they guard the prison at the Wall for the Night's Watch and if you ever try to escape, you suffer a fate worse than death-they suck out your soul through your mouth!"

"Arya, stop it! You're going to scare Bran!" His thirteen-year-old sister Sansa cut in.

"I'm not scared and I've read about them, too. They're called Dementors, not Dismembers, and they're the guards of Azkaban Prison," said Bran, his ten-year-old younger brother.

"That'll be quite enough of that," said Septa McGonagall, clearly disturbed. Septa Minerva McGonagall was a wise and learned older woman who kept her gray streaked brown hair tucked under a green scarf around her head, a mark of the vows she took to dedicate herself to the Faith of the Seven. Even though the Starks, like most people of the north, still honored the Old Gods, Harry's mother, Lady Catelyn Stark, came from a family that kept the Faith, so they, like many noble families, had a septa to tutor their children. She taught them all history and geography and literature and writing-then helped Arya and Sansa with their etiquette lessons, things like embroidery and needlework, while Harry, Bran and their elder brother Robb studied science and philosophy with Maester Luwin and archery and sword fighting with their father's bannermen. When each Stark child turned eleven, they began learning magic, taking lessons with Luwin and, when he visited, the High Warlock of the realm himself, Lord Dumbledore.

"Now, there will be no more talk of creatures that have never been proven to actually exist. If they did, it was at the time of the dragons, long long ago," Septa McGonagall said with an air of finality. "Now, we return to our discussion of the Great War…"

"Did you really dream about dementors?" asked Bran as they strode through the courtyard after lessons concluded for the day.

"Yes," said Harry, already trying to recall the details of the dream as he felt them slipping away. He knew he'd had the dream before and he proceeded to tell Bran this, along with anything he could remember. The cold, foggy wolfswood...quiet...too quiet...and the raven in the branches with her thin amber eyes-dementors emerging through them as if they were doors into somewhere dark and empty...

Though Bran was only ten and couldn't even practice magic yet, Harry often felt that he was the most mature of all the siblings-maybe because he was the most well read. He was the fifth child and the third boy, only older than their youngest brother, six-year-old Rickon. He looked probably the most like their mother of any of them-mimicing her thick dark hair and deep blue eyes. He was smaller and thinner than other boys his age and always had been, something that earned him much ridicule by his brothers and the boys in town, especially when Bran would talk of wanting to join the Kingsguard when he was old enough. It always seemed, though, that Bran took more easily to remembering all the things he read in books than he did to archery and combat training.

"What do you think it means?" he asked, but before Harry had the chance to answer, someone pushed past them like a cannonball of energy. It was their sister, Arya. For all that Bran looked like their mother, Arya closely resembled their father. Her long hair was thin and light brown, her eyes were gray and she was more often than not called plain of face. This, combined with her athleticism, tomboyish tendencies and, as Sansa called it, "aversion to ladylike manner," often got her mistaken for a boy.

"I know something you don't," she teased, trotting backwards a few paces ahead of them. "I saw Maester Luwin coming to tell Septa McGonagall something, so I pretended to forget my history book so I could listen in-"

"And?"

"Maybe I shouldn't tell you, maybe you wouldn't be interested to know-"She laughed and kept walking backwards in front of them, tripping slightly over her boots.

"Come on Arya, stop it, just tell us,"said Harry.

"Lord Dumbledore is coming to Winterfell!" Arya exclaimed.

"Lord Dumbledore?!"

"Yes, he's arriving tonight, which means I'm going to have my first magic lesson with him-I wonder what I'll learn," she went on, but Harry had a hard time sharing her excitement. If Lord Dumbledore, High Warlock of the realm himself, was riding tonight to Winterfell on an unscheduled visit, it could mean nothing good.

The feast for Lord Dumbledore that night was grand and magnificent. Everyone gathered in the Great Hall to welcome the High Warlock, as it was always an honor when he visited Winterfell. The smells of food wafted to Harry's nose as he entered the Great Hall behind his brother Robb , but there was something noticeably different about this feast. It had obviously been thrown together very hastily and servants wove and bobbed their way through the guests in the Hall carrying flagons of wine, loaves of bread, trays of roasted meat, and boats of gravy.

Normally these visits were scheduled well in advance, and Lord Dumbledore might stay a week or so to oversee how the magical education of the noble children was coming along. Tonight, Arya's eavesdropping had proven accurate, and Harry and his brothers had been shuffled away from their afternoon archery lessons to wash up and change into their dress robes. Harry's were a deep bottle-green to match his eyes and he was seated alongside his brothers and sisters on a raised platform at the head of the hall. At the center of their table, his father and mother, the Lord and Lady Stark, hosted their guest, Lord Albus Dumbledore. He was an old man, rumored by many to be over a hundred. He had long silver hair and an equally long silver beard and he wore spectacles shaped like half moons that rested on the bridge of an abnormally crooked nose. As High Warlock of the realm, Lord Dumbledore was recognized as the most powerful warlock in the seven kingdoms through a position to serve as a chief advisor to the king.

It seemed like at least a quarter of Winterfell had gathered in the Great Hall to feast and honor the High Warlock, less than the usual turn out for a feast, but impressive considering the short notice everyone had to let the word travel through the surrounding village. Harry recognized Septa McGonagall and Maester Luwin of course, and then there was Vayon Poole, the castle steward, sitting beside his wife and daughters. He managed the servants and organization around the castle and one of his daughters, Jeyne, was friendly with Sansa and often took etiquette classes with Septa McGonagall alongside she and Arya. Harry also saw Rodrik and Jory Cassel sitting at one of the Hall's front tables. Rodrik was the castle's Master-At-Arms. His nephew Jory served as captain of guards. Harry didn't quite know the difference between these positions yet, but he did know they were both military advisors to his father and that they trained soldiers, including Robb, who had recently come of age to fight if the need arose.

Curiously, he scanned over the crowd of mainly servants, knights, guards and their families, until he spotted a familiar cluster of redheads near the center of the hall. His best friend Ron Weasley sat somewhere amongst them, likely sandwiched between some of his six siblings or his parents. Ron's mother Molly was one of the castle cooks and his father Arthur was the master of horse. They were both incredibly kind and had never seemed to treat Harry differently for being part of the noble family and he'd always appreciated this. Ron had five older brothers, all of whom served House Gryffindor in varying capacities. He had one younger sister, Ginevra, who preferred to be called Ginny. She was the same age as Sansa and Jeyne, but had more in common with Arya. Ron himself was the same age as Harry and dreamed of being a knight for the realm, though his family before him had always been servants.

The entire family, though quite poor, had pledged themselves to House Gryffindor for centuries and had nearly always served Starks in Winterfell and had apparently nearly all been red of hair since as far back as anyone could remember. Harry sometimes wished he could eat down at the servants tables where he could laugh and have fun with the Weasleys and not have to worry about representing the honor of Winterfell while trying to clean the meat off his drumstick.

On nights like tonight, however, he was glad to be sitting up at his family's table where he might be able to glean something of the reason for Lord Dumbledore's sudden, spontaneous visit.

"What are they saying?" Harry asked Robb, elbowing his older brother in the side. Robb was seated directly to the left of their mother, who was immersed in conversation with their father and Lord Dumbledore.

"Never you mind, you'll know if you're meant to," Robb said, straightening his broad shoulders with something of a sense of importance. Ever since Robb turned seventeen and came of age, he liked to act like he'd always been an adult and had never known any different. Ron said his brother Percy was the same way after he came of age, but in Harry's opinion, Percy had always been a little full of himself. Now that he was a scribe of Winterfell, the highest ranked position any Weasley had ever held, he was worse.

Robb, however, used to be fun. Before he began training as a soldier, or as he liked to call it, training to be the future Lord of Winterfell, he often went riding and hunting with Harry and Bran, made jokes and always let the younger siblings in on what was going on if he knew. Even without Robb's help, Harry strained to listen to what his mother was saying. He thought he caught her say "Arryn."

"All the owl said...circumstances mysterious…" he heard, before Robb saw him leaning forward and pushed him back against his seat. But this had given Harry enough to think about for the time being. If an owl was delivering news about an Arryn, news important enough to call Lord Dumbledore to Winterfell, then it had to have something to do with Harry's aunt and uncle. His aunt Lysa was his mother Catelyn's sister. She was heir to the Tully family castle in The Eyrie, to the east. She and Catelyn were both born into House Ravenclaw, as the Tullys had been aligned to for generations, but in marrying Ned Stark and becoming Lady of Winterfell, Harry's mother had sworn loyalty to House Gryffindor. Lysa married into Gryffindor, too, when she married Harry's uncle Jon Arryn, but she'd always remained loyal to Ravenclaw first-likely because she'd never chosen to marry his uncle Jon (as he'd often heard his parents discuss). It had been an arranged marriage to form alliances in the aftermath of the Great War and uncle Jon was significantly older than aunt Lysa. It was all just as well, as it meant Harry and his siblings didn't have to see the Arryns or the Tullys too often-and they were a bit of an unpleasant lot. His uncle Jon had always been nice enough, but aunt Lysa always had her nose in the air like she was smelling something rotten, and their son, Harry's cousin Robin, was incredibly spoiled and always cried if he didn't get his way or win at all the games the cousins played.

Lately though, they'd been spending a lot of time away from the Tullys and the Eyrie, living instead at King's Landing, where uncle Jon served as Hand of the King to the ruler of the seven kingdoms, King Robert Baratheon, of House Gryffindor. If something was going on with any of the Arryns, uncle Jon was probably right in the midst of it. And Harry was determined to find out more.

After the feast, when the Great Hall had descended into the raucous din of drunken conversation, the Stark children were sent to bed and their parents went off with Lord Dumbledore, Maester Luwin and several of their fathers' chief advisors-including Rodrik and Jory Cassel, Robb, and, to Harry's jealousy, Percy Weasley, who was likely meant to keep notes at the meeting. But Harry had no intention of missing out. He knew the meeting would take place in the North Tower, where his father kept his study and if he climbed onto the armory roof, he could traverse the roofs and eaves and tunnels and walls of the castle until he got up to the north tower window.

It was simple enough. All he had to do was sneak out of his bedroom window while his brothers slept, then walk along the top of a long tunnel that led to the guards hall, then climb the roof to that part of the castle, and leap to the roof of the armory from there. He did all this with relative ease, appreciating the cool breeze that rippled over the castle at night, even though it only served as further indication that winter was coming. It had been summer in Winterfell for near on seven years now, and Harry hardly remembered the last time it was winter, but he knew it would be long and cold and would bring snow to blanket the entire northern region of Westeros. He shuddered suddenly, as he remembered his dream and the dementors.

"Careful, you'll fall." Harry spun around abruptly at the sound of the voice just behind him, nearly falling just then. He breathed a sigh of both relief and exasperation, however, when he saw that it was just his brother, Bran.

"What are you doing?" he hissed.

"You think you're the only one who wants to go listen in on the meeting?" Bran whispered. Harry rolled his eyes, but knew there was going to be no arguing. Bran was arguably the best climber out of the lot of them and also, somewhat surprisingly, also the quietest and sneakiest. Robb had often said (jokingly) that if Bran never made the Kingsguard, he'd have a fair shot at being a royal assassin especially if he got really good at magic.

Officially, no one was allowed to climb the roofs and castle walls of Winterfell, least of all the children of the noble family, but when it came to Harry, Bran, and sometimes even Arya, their parents and the guardsmen were fighting a losing battle.

"If you're going to come along, you've got to be quiet," Harry said. His brother nodded and put a finger to his lips.

"I'm quieter than you!" he said, before following Harry across the armory roof. One after the other, the two boys climbed up the side of the partially collapsed tower known as the broken tower, digging their hands and feet into the loose stones until they reached a gargoyle on the side, several floors up, that one could get a good grip on.

Harry, and then Bran after him, swung from this gargoyle to another attached to the First Keep, a rounded part of the castle connected to the north tower by a covered bridge. They dropped to the bridge like shadowcats, quickly enough not to falter but slowly enough as not to make any sudden clattering noises.

Then, it was a matter of climbing the bridge itself, and once atop it, not only could they view much of Winterfell as though under cloaks of Invisibility, exposed yet unseen, but they were also in the perfect position to eavesdrop under the window of their father's study.

"-if Jon Arryn really is dead-"a voice Harry recognized as his mother's was saying.

"The letter bore the King's seal and was written in Robert's own hand. At least he was taken...quickly, though how, I cannot say," said Lord Dumbledore.

"And what of Catelyn's sister and the boy?" Harry's father asked, in a husky voiced attempt to mask what Harry knew to be grief. His father had known uncle Jon for a very long time, since before the Great War and before he'd met any of the Tullys.

"They have left King's Landing and returned to the Eyrie-" Dumbledore.

"-if there's anything we can do-" their mother cut in, but was soon interrupted.

"Later, perhaps. I come bearing other news as well." Lord Dumbledore paused, as if to let the weight of his words settle. Harry made quick eye contact with Bran. Their uncle was dead—their uncle, _the hand of the king, _was dead and no one knew why. Bran blinked up at him and they both risked a sharp intake of breath when Lord Dumbledore began speaking again.

"The king intends to ride here to offer you the position of the new hand."

"My place is here in Winterfell," Harry's father replied almost instantly. Someone coughed inside the study and someone else gave an interested hum. Harry almost hastened another glance at Bran, but didn't want his little brother to be tempted to talk. Harry himself almost couldn't believe what he was hearing. There was talk of making his father, Ned Stark, the new hand of the king—one of the most powerful men in the realm—and he was turning it down? Maybe he read more into Jon Arryn's sudden death than the others did...but who would want to kill a member of the royal court? The Houses were pretty much all aligned now, and had been since the Great War. And most of the people of Westeros were happy with the king, weren't they?

"_Your place_ is in the service to House Gryffindor or have you not forgotten?" said Lord Dumbledore, with a new steeliness to his tone.

"When will he make the journey?" their father asked.

"They ride at dawn tomorrow."

"How many?"

"At least half his court, I'd expect. Maybe 100 knights. Cersei and the children...and Lucius and Tyrion as well."

"Hm. Where the King goes, the realm follows, I suppose...Lannisters included," their father said, clearly making no effort to hide his annoyance. The Lannisters of House Slytherin were a wealthy family from Casterly Rock who'd married into the royal family to form an alliance between the two Houses. They'd never gotten on well with the Starks, who'd apparently been inclined to distrust Slytherins for generations. Harry was about to nudge Bran in the side and gesture for them to head back to their rooms so they wouldn't be caught when the meeting let out, for he'd started to hear the rustling of papers and the pushing back of chairs from inside the room. But he hesitated when he heard Dumbledore call out-

"-this meeting is not yet adjourned." All noises stopped. Harry held his breath and strained his ears to listen. "There is one more news item of note-and this does not leave this room. I don't want word getting out yet-no need to worry the realm. I doubt anyone beyond the king, myself and the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch are aware-up until now."

"Aware of what, my Lord?" Jory Cassel asked.

"There was a...security breach at the Wall. At the Prison."

"Not Azkaban Prison? No one's ever escaped before. It's inpenetrable."

"Only until it isn't."

"Who escaped?" Even their father sounded shocked and a little afraid. No one had ever escaped from Azkaban before, not in the many centuries of its existence. It was known to the realm that the prison was guarded by the Night's Watch on the Wall, but there had always been a rumor whispered on the lips of children and conspiracy theorists, that the prison was guarded by something far darker-creatures thought not to even exist anymore, if they'd ever existed at all. Dementors were known as some of the foulest creatures to ever walk the earth.

"A maximum security prisoner. Bellatrix Lestrange. Ned, you may know her as Bellatrix Black...or remember her as the Raven Skull Woman, from the rebellion."

"On the offchance the Night's Watch -have- lost control of the dementors…"

"Lost control of the dementors? Well if they have, then what would that mean, Albus?" Harry had never heard his mother sound so truly fearful.

"It would mean that Westeros is no longer safe."

~_"There is only one god, and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: 'Not today'."~Syrio Forel, Game of Thrones _


	2. Chapter 2: The Lion and the Snake

**Episode 2: The Lion and the Snake**

_**-Pentos-**_

_Peridot green. _That was Daenerys Slytherin's first thought upon seeing the dress stretched out over her bed covers when she emerged from her bath. She'd never felt fabric so soft, and it seemed to run through her fingers like sand off the beaches of Braavos, where she'd spent her earliest years.

It was green to match her eyes, her older brother Viserys had said. And the silver serpent jewelry that accompanied her dress would remind everyone of their namesake, he'd promised. _You'll look like a princess tonight_, he'd promised also.

Another girl in her place might have been excited, but for Daenerys, her pending adornments didn't come without some hint of worry. The dress and jewelry must have cost more together than anything she'd ever touched-and it had all been provided for free by Magister Illyrio Mopatis, the master of the expansive estate in Pentos she and Viserys had been living on for over a year. Magisters (high-born wizards of the Free Cities) were not known for their kindness. They'd managed to enslave Muggles (or as they called them, Nomajs) for several centuries and their obsession with magical blood purity came second only to their obsession with riches. Despite the slavery of the Muggles, Pentos and its surrounding areas were called the Free Cities because magical people were no longer allowed to ever be enslaved there. Even though Daenerys and her brother were pure-bloods, they came from abroad and had nothing much to show for themselves but a powerful name and the few heirlooms they'd managed to take with them when they were smuggled out of Westeros as children. And there were plenty of impoverished purebloods in Pentos, she was certain (not everyone could be a Magister after all) that she had to wonder why Magister Illyrio had taken such an interest in the Slytherin heirs-specifically, in Daenerys, herself.

When they'd arrived in Pentos from Lys, they'd almost had to sell their last truly valuable Slytherin family heirloom-a heavy gold locket with a serpentine S on the front that was inlaid with emeralds. It had belonged to their father and had been in their family for generations. And Viserys had nearly traded it for cheese. Granted, it would have been a lot of cheese (the primary export of Pentos) and would have helped to keep them fed for quite some time, but fortunately for them, the trader brought the locket to his employer Magister Illyrio, who'd recognized the symbol on the front and invited Viserys and Daenerys to move in with him right away.

Prior to his invitation, the siblings had grown used to a fairly nomadic lifetsyle. Before Lys, it was Volantis. Before that, Myr, Tyrosh, Qohor, Braavos...each time, never staying long enough to really establish any sort of identity for themselves. Viserys always told her this was because they always had to be worried the Gryffindors and their allies may find and kill them yet, but Daenerys had her suspicions it was their own reputation and ever-enduring poverty they ran from more than anything else. With each new city in which they arrived, they found the richest noblemen they could and pitched their story about being the last surviving heirs to House Slytherin and while this sometimes got them sympathy, a temporary roof over their heads, or even just a hot meal and some clean clothes-it more often than not earned them reputatons as swindlers, beggars, tricksters, thieves and rogues...

But everything changed after they moved into the magister's manse.

Magister Illyrio and his family before him had come to their fortune primarily through their dealings in spices, gemstones and...Nomaj slaves, a fact which made Dany's spine bristle even though Viserys tried to assure her over and over again it was just the way the world was meant to operate. It was through his dealings in the slave trade that Illyrio made wealthy and powerful connections across all the Nine Free Cities, Vaes Durmstrang and even beyond the Jade Sea. He didn't have a very good reputation around the city, but for whatever reason, he was kind to Viserys, and visibly doted on Daenerys. He was always making sure they were well-fed, "clothed like the high-borns they were," and tended by slaves. He'd even assigned Daenerys her own personal slaves, though she preferred to think of them more like the friends and family she didn't have outside of her brother. They chatted with her, told stories, sang songs and strolled the gardens with her...but they also made her bed, cleaned her room, washed her clothes, cooked her meals and drew her hot baths accented with colored, scented oils from plants like lavender, rose and sweet vanilla...

But it was hard not to feel like a pig being fattened up for slaughter….even though Viserys seemed to believe he'd be able to pay off the magister's support in more than full when he took back the throne and it was this that supposedly garnered the man's support of and interest in the affairs of the Slytherin siblings.

The sun that crested over the sea surrounding Pentos was orange mottled with red as it bled through the window. Daenerys leaned over the windsill, letting the salty breeze ruffle her long white-blonde hair. Though she had her apprehensions about her host's intentions, it was hard not to view the estate and Pentos as beautiful. The territory of the Magister stretched out to reach the sea, but was nestled on its sides between the sharp-edged brick buildings of urban Pentos, the silouettes of which dappled the pink sky with shadow spots that almost looked purple in the sunset. But stretched out before her was an expanse of land so lovely it could have been born from the descriptions in her earliest storybooks. Gardens blended to beaches that caressed the edges of the narrow sea, whose waters sparkled equally in sun and moonlight with the magnificance of the sapphires their host sold and traded.

As she overlooked it, she sometimes imagined what it might be like to cross that sea-not necessarily to return to Westeros and conquer it as her brother had always dreamed, but to taste the air of the western continent and first see if it was different on her tongue than the breezes of the east; and second, to see which tasted, smelled, felt more familiar. "Our land," her brother called that other, distant place. He'd always spoken about it to her in fragments-excerpts here and there throughout her childhood of a story that had never felt complete. "Because it isn't complete," Viserys told her once. "Not until we write the ending," he continued. Over the years he'd told her about green earth and densely wooded forests and mountains parted by rivers, streams, estuaries that met their source at the same narrow sea she watched now...but what might have been real memories to her brother felt like thin wisps of fireside tales to Daenerys, who'd never laid eyes on the western continent outside of a few glimpses of Dragonstone in the nights following her birth, though these of course, were ghosts to her as well.

"Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever," Viserys seemed to repeat endlessly. From her earliest memories growing up with him in Braavos, he told her these words were their mother's. From then on, he used them to justify everything.

He'd been eight and she, just an infant, when they fled Westeros, smuggled out from their nursery in Dragonstone in shipping boxes in the dead of night by Ser Willem Darry on the next ship bound out for Braavos. This was sixteen years ago now. Their mother Rhaella Slytherin died birthing Daenerys. Their father King Salazar and elder brother Rhaegal were already dead, killed by the Usurpers of House Gryffindor. When Godric Gryffindor took the throne by force, he'd ordered every last relative to Salazar Slytherin destroyed. Ser Willem had been a close associate of her father's and though he was, according to Viserys, always known to be an angry and grumpy older man who'd never shown much attachment to nor care for children, it was he who risked trial for treason by faking the deaths of the young Slytherin heirs and carving out a refuge for them in Braavos. "He did it for the realm and to repay debts owed our father, not for us," Viserys reminded her any time she made mention of the old man who'd been her first guardian, but she remembered him as tender and kind. He had plans to raise them as his own in Braavos, in a big house with a red door and its own orchard of lemon trees. But when Dany was five and Viserys thirteen, Ser Willem got sick and died suddenly. The servants stole their house and money and kicked them to the streets with only a few of their own closely guarded family heirlooms-most notably, the locket and an old Valyrian steel ring-and what little money Viserys could sneak away in the short time they had to gather their things and leave.

Thus began their migratory trek through the east that had brought them here, to Magister Illyrio, to hot baths and silk dresses of peridot green and an impending dinner of great importance.

"Viktor Krum has a thousand horses, but tonight, he looks for a different kind of mount," her brother had told her before the slaves took her to her bath. Viktor Krum. She'd heard so much about him these past few days. He was a wealthy ruler of the Durmstrang, of Vaes Durmstrang-a hot, dry, deserty sort of place or so she'd always heard...a place that bred wizards and witches as harsh and tough as the climate they called home. _But Khal Viktor's palace is not like that..._Magister Illyrio said when he'd first broached the topic at dinner one evening. _Khal Viktor is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars...a hundred thousand men ride in his khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Durmstrang has two hundred rooms and doors of solid gold..._Prized for his wealth, his looks, his magic, his riding skills, his fighting ability...and tonight, he was coming to the manse to decide if he would take Daenerys as his wife.

"Not ready yet? I'll send the slaves back to dress you...You mustn't disappoint me tonight, you know that, right?" Viserys was leaning against the doorframe to her room, ready for the evening already in sleek black dress robes with his wand and a sword borrowed from Magister Illyrio polished and gleaming at his waist and his silvery hair pulled back in a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck. She noticed he wore their family locket and ring also, with the emerald inlaid "S" symbols facing up on both.

"I shall try my best, brother, but what if Khal Viktor doesn't like me?" Daenerys asked with just a little too much fear in her voice. Her brother strode further into the room and placed a hand on her bare shoulder. She didn't know if his intention was to be comforting, threatening or possessive, but she supposed it was likely some combination of the three.

"He'll like you well enough. Why shouldn't he? You'll hold your tongue and look every bit the princess tonight," said Viserys, using that word again. _Princess. _And hold her tongue? Well he was one to talk. He was always going on about how they were Slytherins, serpents who held their tongues for no one. "You're slouching again." Viserys frowned and Daenerys pulled her towel more tightly around her body, as though to hide her terrible posture and any other flaw her brother might catch. She couldn't stand to be any more nervous, after all.

"Shoulders back. Stand up straight and for the love of the Lord of Light, _smile._ You don't want to wake the serpent, do you?" Waking the serpent was how Viserys referred to his formidable temper. Daenerys nodded, squaring her shoulders back and offering her brother a weak smile.

"At least if Khal Viktor marries me, it should secure us. No more begging from city to city or casting our lots with the Magisters," she said.

"My sister, we are already secure. _When _Khal Viktor marries you, it will arm us. He has the largest khalasar of Vaes Durmstrang at his disposal and allegiances throughout the Free Cities and on the Isle of Beauxbatons as well. In exchange for your hand, Khal Viktor and his armies will ride with us to take back Westeros from the Usurpers."

_But how do you know he's even interested? Who lays down an army for a woman he has never even met? Especially if he's as intelligent and well-endowed as everyone says? _Daenerys wanted to ask, but even she knew better than to question her brother when his mind was made up.

_**-Winterfell-**_

Harry Stark couldn't remember ever seeing this many people gathered in one place before. Everyone in Winterfell seemed to be waiting at the castle gates to welcome the King and Queen of the realm. Harry himself stood near the front of the crowd beside his siblings and their parents. They all wore dress robes, as they had for Lord Dumbledore's welcome dinner, and had fur cloaks shrouded over their shoulders for warmth. The visitors were led by a marching band of trumpeters and drummers followed by a parade of what must have been three hundred or so bannermen and knights all wielding the house Gryffindor colors of scarlet and gold and the seal of the lion. Even keeping a steady pace with each other, they seemed to charge past the watching crowd, their horses kicking up several clods of snow-mixed dirt in the process. He stood almost as though transfixed by the sheer force and power radiating off all the armor-clad men and their horses.

"Look!" exclaimed Arya suddenly. She grabbed Harry's shoulder and turned him to look to the right. "It's the Lannisters!" The House Slytherin members of the royal court wore Gryffindor badges today, too, Harry noticed, but he also knew it had to be them all the same. One of them was broad-shouldered and had long hair down his back the color of cornsilk-he had to be Ser Lucius Lannister, twin brother to the queen-and the other, equal in height to their youngest brother Rickon, had to be Tyrion Lannister, whom Harry had spent his whole life hearing called "the Imp." Behind them, on a tall white horse, rode a pale-haired and equally pale-faced boy who couldn't have been much older than Harry, yet he wore dress robes that might have been trimmed with gold.

"It's Prince Draco!" Arya whispered. "Sansa _fancies _him-"

"I do not!" said Sansa, but she blushed as red as her hair all the same.

After Prince Draco, rode the King of the realm himself, Robert Baratheon, on a warhorse flanked by two knights. He was larger in ways that Harry expected (after all, this was the man who'd fought alongside his father and Lord Dumbledore against Voldemort fifteen years ago)...and also in ways he hadn't. The King was a good six and a half feet tall and, it seemed, almost just as wide. Harry would have thought this a man not to cross if it wasn't for the jovial smile he wore under his beefy moustache, his gaudy robes, and double chins to suggest King Robert hadn't been much for fighting in some time.

"Ned! Good to see that frozen face of yours. You haven't changed at all." The King had paused the processional temporarily to stop and hug Harry's father

"Winterfell is yours, your grace," Ned Stark replied, with a respectful dip of his head, and the party rode on through the castle gates. Following the King, was a large, seemingly spacious and slightly rounded carriage pulled by at least a dozen horses and likely containing Queen Cersei and her younger children.

Harry had spent much of his life hearing mixed opinions about Cersei Lannister. He knew the facts, of course. That she was born into the wealthy House Slytherin family, the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, at the same time as her twin brother, Lucius. Her mother Joanna died when she was fairly young. Her father Abraxas went on to support Voldemort, but after the war, he successfully convinced Lord Dumbledore and King Robert that he'd been under a spell. In a show of support to the realm, he'd evidently arranged the marriage between Cersei and the King. But not many people ever came around to trusting the Lannisters, and some even went so far as to accuse the queen of manipulating her husband with her beauty.

And she _was_ beautiful, Harry observed, when the family exited their carriage at the entrance to the Great Keep. Her long hair was curled into soft yellow ringlets down the center of her back. She was thin, but curvy, and though her dress was Gryffindor scarlet and her tiara gold, it glittered with emeralds that matched the deep green of her eyes and were perhaps a subtle nod to her Slytherin heritage. Her children followed her-the ten-year-old princess Myrcella and prince Tommen, her brother, who was about a year her junior-both of them fresh-faced and blonde like Draco and their mother.

Harry, Arya and Sansa approached the royal children with some trepidation, unsure if it was proper for them to do so or not, but no one had said anything to the contrary.

"Take me down to your crypt, Eddard. I would pay my respects," the King was saying to their father.

"But we've only just arrived. We've been riding all day-the children are tired and I'm sure we'd all like to freshen up before dinner," said the queen. She might have sounded like she was making a request, but Harry heard a chill to her voice and saw a steeliness in her eyes that suggested Cersei Lannister was used to always getting what she wanted.

"Well, surely Lucius could escort you inside, right?" King Robert suggested and Ser Lucius took his sister's arm.

"And Lady Catelyn will be happy to show you where you'll be staying," Harry's father offered. His mother nodded and she and Lord Dumbledore followed Cersei and Lucius into the Great Keep. King Robert and Lord Stark veered off around the side of the castle to go down to the Winterfell crypts and the Imp, Lord Tyrion, walked in the other direction towards the castle gates and town.

"Harry!" He turned on his heel to see a flurry of red hair running towards him-his best friend, Ron Weasley, and Ron's little sister, Ginny.

"Did you see all the horses? We don't know where Dad's gonna put them all-It's mad! Mum's never had to cook for this many people before!" Ron exclaimed, though Harry knew he liked it when his family could be important.

"Associating with the children of servants? And I thought you were supposed to be the _royals of the North_." Prince Draco wandered over to them, Myrcella and Tommen in tow, all of their pale hair seeming to disappear in beams of afternoon sunlight.

"My Lord," said Sansa, dipping her head. "It's not what you think-my brother is just being polite. We're lucky to have such kind servants-just because we're decent to their children doesn't make us their friends."

"What?!" Ginny Weasley shouted. She stormed up to Sansa so that the two redheaded women were standing almost nose-to-nose. "And who was it asking me to tea with you and Jeyne Poole? You're just mad I'd rather spend my time with people whose wands aren't shoved so far up their asses!"

"C'mon Ginny, it's not worth it-" Ron laid a hand on his sister's shoulder, but she shoved him off.

"Are you just going to let this happen?" Arya asked him, but Harry felt awkward. He knew how some families, especially the old southern families, felt about people of different social classes interacting with each other. His parents didn't seem to care about his friendship with the Weasleys, as the north traditionally didn't hold with such classism, but while he wanted to defend his friend, he couldn't exactly speak out against their future King...could he?

"It _is_ worth it. And who are you to ride in here on your father's coat-tails talking about children of servants when the only reason you've got those golden robes is because your father happened to be a war hero when he popped into your mother. What did you do to deserve anything?!" Ginny looked like she was on fire when she charged at Draco, but he merely shrugged and made a dismissive gesture.

"How dare you talk to me! Filthy little mudblood!"

"Oh now he's gone too far! Keep your foul tongue down south where it belongs!" Arya pushed Draco back and he would have fallen back into the snow had Sansa not grabbed his arm.

"What's going on?"said Bran, wandering over with Rickon.

"What's a mudblood?" asked the youngest Stark.

"Mudblood's a really horrid name for a wizard or witch who's part wildling," said Arya, who, if she wasn't being held back by Ron and Ginny, would have gone at Draco again.

"It's also used as a slur against people believed to be from the lowest classes of society," Bran put in. Harry swallowed. He was already feeling bad for not sticking up for his friends.

"Never you mind. I've just been trying to figure out where your family's loyalties lie. Your sister's the only one of you with a damn bit of sense. Come along, you lot," said Draco, gesturing to his siblings, who were waiting silently on the sidelines. "And you, too." He pointed to Sansa. "What about the rest of you? You'll be the lords of Winterfell someday. You don't want to go keeping friends with the wrong sort."

Harry looked between Arya and the Weasleys and Sansa and the Baratheons.

"I think we can tell the wrong sort for ourselves, thanks," he replied. And there was no mistaking the bitterness in Draco's (or his sister Sansa's) eyes when he joined the others in walking away from them.

_**-King's Landing-**_

Everybody always said the place smelled like shit, but to Bellatrix, there may have been nothing sweeter than the scents of King's Landing, as she rode into the city at night, taking a deep breath to fill her lungs full with the air of the place she'd spent the happiest moments of her life.

She was born at Casterly Rock, but when Salazar Slytherin sat on the Iron Throne, her father Lord Cygnus Black was named Master of Coin and served as one of the chief advisors to the King. He brought her and her youngest sister Narcissa to King's Landing with him, to live at the Red Keep, and this was where Bellatrix first meant Voldemort.

It was over twenty years ago now. She was a teenager and he was scandalously older, but still Tom Riddle then. Narcissa's arranged marriage to Lucius Lannister had been set since they were children and she was more than excited to marry him when she came of age. She desired nothing more than to be a Lady to her Lord, bear lots of children, and walk the gardens of the Red Keep in expensive silk dresses...but Bellatrix had always longed for _more. _She never could place what exactly she wanted. She and Narcissa often liked to watch the knights of the Kingsguard ride through the city-but whilst Narcissa talked on about how good they looked and how strong, how noble they were, how Lucius was going to be one when he came of age, Bellatrix wasn't content to set her sites on simply _marrying_ a knight. She wanted to _be_ a knight. _Women can't be knights, Bella, you know this..._her mother Druella had reminded her exhasperatedly the only time Bellatrix had ever voiced her desire aloud. But her father had approached her with a softer stance, allowing her to take combative horseback riding lessons with none other than one Lord Riddle. And from the moment she saw him, she knew.

She was fifteen and he, in his thirties, and looking like he was in the prime of his life. Naturally pale and chiseled, he was tanned from the sun and muscular around his arms. His hair was dark and wavy with a hint of curl in just the right weather, cut to just past his ears, and his eyes, black as ebony, reminded her of coals on a fire, right when they hit the heat and started to spark.

The golden pin that designated him Hand of the King stood out starkly against his black robes and his wand and favorite sword, Silverfang, were hilted at his waist when he led two gray warhorses over to meet her for their first lesson. She preserved this image of him like she'd taken a snapshot of it in her mind. She felt drawn to him, wanting to touch and know all of him, but also at the same time, feeling like she already did. She didn't know she was biting her lip until she tasted a hint of blood in her mouth, salt and iron and a bit sweet, like she still had custard on her tongue from breakfast. She remembered it now as her first feeling of lust, but maybe it was also a visceral reaction to her first glimpse of true power.

Her lessons progressed rapidly-for he saw something in her, he always said. Though he never specified what. From riding warhorses to training with swords and knives to dark kinds of mind and blood magic no maester would have ever dared to teach her, if even they knew such things themselves.

And it was said, after the assasination of Salazar Slytherin and ascension of Godric Gryffindor, the war and Tom Riddle's transformation into Lord Voldemort and subsequent rebellion, after he disappeared, and after her own trial and imprisonment, during which she refused to give him up for anything, that at best, they were good for each other other—at worst, they deserved each other. And she thought of all this when she looked longingly up at the Red Keep, only to veer away and ride in another direction at the last minute, instead along the coast of King's Landing, where, aside Blackwater Bay, rested a small house that to her then, might have been a castle.

It was a simple house, built in the style common for King's Landing and covered over with limestone-washed plaster that gave it its yellowed color and protected by a slanted red slate roof. A winding brick pathway led up to an intricate door bearing a telling stained glass design-half of it a golden lion against a red background and the other half of it a silver snake against green-the symbols of Houses Gryffindor and Slytherin, respectively. Bellatrix dismounted from her horse and approached the door with one hand clasping her wand, just in case.

The night was balmy, a far contrast from up north where the impending winter felt far more imminent, but even still, the breeze ruffled her hair slightly. The message from the raven said to meet him here, at this house, with this door.

And she'd already waited too long.

_~"The things I do for love…"~Jaime Lannister, Game of Thrones _


End file.
